


Take what you get

by stillmadaboutpetra



Series: Bite the Hand That Feeds [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Background Erwin smith/Levi, Background mike/erwin, Half plot half porn, Intercrural Sex, Intersex Character, Oral Sex, Penetrative Sex, background mike/Levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13193913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillmadaboutpetra/pseuds/stillmadaboutpetra
Summary: Nanaba's been disappearing. Of course Mike notices.





	Take what you get

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minxiebutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minxiebutt/gifts).



> This is a commission fill for Minxie! They wanted stuff from my Bite the Hand that Feeds universe, so i dropped it into a random plot point that hasn't been written. You dont have to have read it. They also wanted Mike/Nana. Who doesn't want Mike/Nana?

 

It’s one thing knowing that Erwin’s keeping secrets. That’s hardly worth dwelling on after Mike’s known him so many years. Though, that does put an emphasis on how well he knows Erwin, but what’s the matter of secrets when Mike can turn his back on Erwin without fear. (He quells the rise of his hackles for his own comfort.) Levi is an enigma, and no one can begin to argue with him about secrecy. Levi keeping secrets with Erwin? That’s normal.

Hanji? Well, Hanji’s an expert in the absurd and Mike probably couldn’t understand their secrets should they scream them from the bell towers. And Hanji’s their Titan expert, so their meeting with Erwin doesn’t (shouldn’t) raise alarms.

But when Nanaba mentioned a harbored respect for their fellow Third, Mike didn’t expect anything interactive from the reveal. He didn’t expect Nana to actually start talking to Hanji, so when it’d happened, he’d been too stupefied to raise more than an eyebrow and give an encouraging tip of his chin. Even the matter of community among Third’s could explain Nanaba and Hanji coming out of Erwin’s office one night, all silence. Nanaba’s shoulders had been up to their ears with tension, and they’d practically scurried away when they saw Mike coming down the hall.

After that, he couldn’t stop noticing how elusive Nanaba had become and the overwhelming number of times Mike found them in the company of Erwin or Hanji, two people that Nanaba held a healthy amount of fear and respect for prior to the sudden camaraderie– and based on their evasive answers at the slightest questions, still did maintain.

After a little bit, Mike thinks that he’s going fucking insane. Because Erwin has been vanishing, Hanji’s been vanishing, and now Nanab’s vanishing – with them. It reminds him a lot of Levi disappearing back when Erwin was still Lieutenant Commander and Shadis had looked the other way to whatever those two had been up to, and now Mike’s stuck in the same impotent position, left grinding his teeth as Nanaba vanishes for another full day, absent from drills, from the canteen, from their bed (from Mike’s bed.) He’s left without answers, without excuses.

Erwin looks at him with a carefully blank face when Mike barges into his office. He doesn’t even need to ask his question because Erwin looks back down at his papers and Mike follows his eyes and he can’t read the code Erwin’s writing in and there’s a sketch of a Titan and Hanji’s scribbled notes pushed to the side.

“If Nanaba misses another day of training, I’m taking them off the field entirely.”

Erwin looks up at that, eyebrows sunken over his eyes. His face is shadowed, as if he’s rolling back into his bones day by day, flesh sinking like a corpse. “If you see it necessary to the function of your squad, you can shuffle them out.”

“I don’t’ want them on the field at all.”

“That’s not your call, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Erwin.”

Mike leans back against the closed door of Erwin’s office, shoulders broad enough to span its width. Nothing about him intimidates Erwin and everything about this not-knowing overwhelms Mike. It’s not a fair trade. The world’s upended its disfavor on him. Nanaba’s been fine as far as he can see, but it’s too easy to feel again the coldness Levi came back with from Erwin’s secret missions. It’s too easy to remember Nanaba and a raging fever and the smell of hay at a farm house. But when has he ever gotten answers out of Erwin that Erwin didn’t want to give? When has being strong ever won him anything but more burdens to carry?

“I’ll dismiss them from the next mission,” Erwin says, almost an apology. Not an explanation, but Mike didn’t really expect one.

Latent anger burns through him, pushed and pushed down for weeks. He and Nanaba had been on the high of new lovers, unable to quench their desire for each other even after coupling every night, and suddenly Nanaba’s occupied by whatever Erwin’s plotting in the shadows. Nanaba. They’re a cadet, not an officer, and they’ve been taken into the fold before Mike.

Is it even about them so much as the same shit Erwin keeps pulling on him?

(He wonders then who he’s jealous of between Erwin and Nanaba.)

_Erwin, forehead pressed to Mike’s. They’re breathing each other in, still, bones hard under hands, bodies hard and unrelenting._

_“Tell me what’s wrong,” Mike had asked, offered, demanded. He only felt the minute shake of Erwin’s head because the skin of their foreheads pulled just so, and Mike squeezed the back of Erwin’s neck in his wide hand, eliciting a small groan of reluctance. “Erwin.”_

_“My friend,” Erwin sighed, pulling up and out of his hands, face shadowed and eyes averted. “Keep up the good work. That’s what I need. For you to be where I cannot be.”_

How many times can he roll over? Until Nanaba comes back looking like Levi? As shut-down as he is? Or comes back hurt or not at all.

Speak of the devil, and he comes. Levi fades out of the shadow like the skulking weasel he is.

“I’m sure that was a successful meeting,” Levi intones, ignoring Mike’s fright at his appearance. “You stormed in and stormed out and it lasted, oh, a minute? Astounding.”

“Unless you can answer my questions about—“

“About anything? Not really,” Levi shrugs, head down and arms crossed. He lists gently against Mike, an affectionate consoling gesture.

“You have to know more than I do.”

“I do…but not as much as either of us would want.” He shakes his head and Mike knocks an arm against him, ushering him away from Erwin’s office, skin prickling.

 He’ll take any scrap of clues Levi can give him. Nanaba’s been gone two days in a row. It’s bad enough being on the field and not knowing where his squad members are, when Nanaba is airborne and Mike can’t pick them out from the rest, but this slow horror of their vanishing again and again within the Walls, the creep of deceit he can smell but can’t name, is a new kind of haunting.

Their offices are not their bedrooms, so when they take the turn towards the officer’s quarters, Mike grabs Levi and pulls him into his room. It’s a testament to something, guilt or pity, that Levi doesn’t fuss at the manhandling and lets himself be closed into Mike’s room.

“You said once that you’d follow me as Commander.”

Levi paces a slow circle, hand trailing along the small writing desk that Mike dwarfs whenever he opts to write personal letters. “I did. But you aren’t.”

“Erwin’s mind isn’t on his soldiers.”

Levi doesn’t look at him. He takes Mike’s quill pen from its haphazard sleep on the edge of the desk and slots it back into its stand.

“His head is elsewhere,” Mike presses.

“If that’s true,” Levi says carefully, head cocked to listen to things that aren’t there. “Then you keep your head for him.”

He jumps a mile when Mike slams his fist back into the door, rattling it on its hinges. The boom echoes down the hall and in the room. “Goddamnit,” Mike spits. “He’s our Commander.”

“Then trust him! Help him,” Levi counters, turning towards him in a flash of squared shoulders and upturned face. His eyes are narrow with conviction, a pleading tautness in his open mouth when he talks. “He’s protecting you, you stupid ox. He’s protecting us.”

Mike believes him. Immediately, he believes that Erwin’s protecting them. But Erwin is not an all-loving creature. He’s selfish and he possesses and he hordes, and Mike doubts that his Nanaba will be shielded the same way that Erwin has opted to do for him and Levi.

* * *

 

Nanaba comes back. Mike doesn’t expect the space to be filled, but suddenly his squad is full again. His members regard the newest, youngest addition, often absent, and then look to him for some reaction. He gives none. The day proceeds. The sun ruptures overhead. It pours by sundown. Mike stands out in it until he’s chilled to the bone. He thinks of Erwin’s drunken kisses and Levi’s impetuous teasing. He feels ridiculous and even moreso when he returns to his room, shivering, to find Nanaba sitting on his bed, hair still damp, curls loose.

They look up when he enters, hands twisting together nervously before they gathered themselves and fold them behind their back in a prim soldier’s posture, like it’s a parade.

“Mike.”

He ignores them, stripping in his doorway without shame. He feels the loss of their gaze as they turn their head, still delicate in some things. He smiles fondly before he remembers himself, but Nanaba didn’t see it so it never happened. He finds a discarded pair of lace up breeches and shimmies into them, the fabric loved and soft. He grabs his leisure cloak, a gift from Erwin of all things, that he’s had since they were cadets. He’s pretty sure Erwin stole it. Maybe it was something Mary gave him, and he’d been in want more for a gift to give than a gift to keep. He’d been a frugal boy. His greed lay elsewhere.

Nanaba’s head is still turned when Mike approaches them and turns it for them, thumb and forefinger pinching their chin. Apology sits blatantly on their face. Mike lets his hand drop to swing and still at his side.

“The Commander said you’ve marked my absence.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” he says mildly. He gathers his wet clothes and hangs them on the rack by the window. They leave a trail of black splatters from door to window. “Do you expect to miss another day of training?”

He’s still not looking at them but the hesitation of their answer is enough. “Yes.”

“You’re out of my squad.”

Nanaba screeches instantly with confusion.

“You’re a liability. You were sloppy today.” It’s true.

“You can’t do that,” Nanaba sputters, naïve.

“I cleared it with the Commander. You’re not on the field for the next mission at all. And until you shape up, you’re off my squad. I can’t afford a carless person to have my team’s back on the outskirts.”

There’s a choke of noise and then, to Mike’s surprise, a stomp of feet that catches Mike’s attention more than their loud outrage. He didn’t think that Nanaba weighed enough to make noise. They are deathly quiet most of the time. He lets them jerk him around, both hands pulling at him, everything intimate spilled here in the aggression and sureness of their hold on his arm and shirt. They’re rocked onto their toes, trying to bring themselve closer to his face to find the answers.

“You’re going to punish me for listening to the Commander?”

He lifts his chin. “That’s how you want to twist this?”

Nanaba opens and closes their mouth before shoving him away, or trying. Mike doesn’t shift on his feet and instead Nanaba stumbles back with the motion, angrier now at his unflinching size.

“I’m following orders. It’s chain of command.”

Mike catches their wrist, interrupting their attempt to storm off. A creature of flight. He sees again Levi; hollow and windblown. Nanaba tugs once but relents after only the show of resistance, shoulders slumped and head drooping on their neck.

“Nanaba,” Mike entreats, sliding his hand down their thin wrist to take their hand and guide Nanaba back to him. "His orders apply to the Corp, nothing else.”

He knows it’s something else. That much is clear. If Levi’s not in on it but Hani is, and now Nanaba, Mike can only worry. He’d feel better if he knew Levi was watching Nanaba’s back on whatever secret mission Erwin’s vanishing Nanaba away to complete.

“They’re not – He’s not _making_ me. He asked me to help him,” Nanaba growls out. “I want to. He needs me, Mike.”

Mike draws Nanaba towards him a step, then another. At least they’re giving him ground. Is it pathetic to want to hold Nanaba even as he wants to berate them for their idiocy? He twitches with the desire to kiss their curls and breathe them in and never let them vanish out of his sight. He doesn’t.

“I know it feels good to be needed by Erwin. He makes you feel so important, so essential. I understand the position you’re in, Nanaba. He’s the Commander for a reason; he got here because he’s brilliant but ruthless.” He closes the space between them and drops a hand onto Nanaba’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “But you can tell him no.”

“ _You_ can’t even tell him no,” Nanaba scoffs. Mike’s wordless, and Nanaba finally looks up at him from under their curls, rosy, dark and cherubic, so sweet and so irritated. “Him and Captain Levi, they could get you to do anything.”

Mike withdraws his hand, half turning in hidden shame. “I know when to say no.”

Nanaba crosses their arms across their chest and shifts their weight onto one leg. They stare up at him, head no higher than his chest. “And I know when to say yes. You don’t even know what you’re talking about, Mike. The Commander does need me. And if you knew –” Nanaba sucks in a breath and Mike zeros his eyes on them; they reveal nothing, jaw tense. “You’d want me to help him, if you knew.”

“But I don’t.”

Nanaba shakes their head. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you are. You said yes to whatever this is knowing you’d lie to me.”

Nanaba nods slowly, but this time they don’t look away. Maybe it’s worse, the bluntness of a lie. It’s a stone wall, known but unrevealing. It’s transformed from a lie to simple withholding. Mike exhales loudly and scrapes a hand over his face and through his hair, tension shaking him.

“This thing,” he starts too loudly but there’s no helping it, he can’t be quiet, “this thing is hard enough when I can’t keep you safe out in the field. When the only thing I can do is make sure you can fight and run and fly as best as possible. I’m left hoping that whenever death comes that it’s as fast as possible but you _willingly_ chose to do something like this, whatever this is.”

“I—“

“Do you even care?”

“Of course! Of course I care, Mike!”

“So what, you’re disappearing for days without explanation because you care?”

“Yes!” Nanaba shrieks, shoving at him again. Grabbing him, on their toes again, god he’ll never be over that. “Yes, you ox of a man! I’m protecting you _and_ the commander _and_ the whole fucking corp.” Their fist knocks into his heart, a madman’s salute. “You’re the one who said all this was bigger than us.”

Nanaba’s not expecting the crack of his smile. Mike snorts, disbelieving. Either Nanaba has been hanging around Levi behind his back or what people are saying is coming true. Is he an ox? Is everyone trying to protect him? But Erwin too…that’s alarming. Does Nanaba really believe that, or is it the truth? Nanaba and Hanji…a pair of Thirds that keep sneaking off. That brigadier dead. Nile’s appearance. He’s walled in. He opens his eyes and it’s all stone. He might as well be buried alive.

“Why are you laughing?” Nanaba smacks his chest, but they sound relieved and the hit is light.

“I’ve been insulted so much these days,” Mike sighs. “I need to laugh it off, or I’ll get a complex.”

Nanaba bats weakly at his chest again, fingers curling into his cloak. “Mike,” their voice wavers, “tell me you understand. Trust me, please? I have your back; off the field, I have your back too.”

He swallows and takes up their hand, mouth coming down to ghost across the thin skin of their wrist, nostrils flaring as he takes in the scent of their skin. He’s so angry but it’s the anger of impotence. Its anger at himself for not be able to say no.

“I hate not being able to watch yours,” he murmurs, mouth at the cuff of Nanaba’s sleeve. They shiver and press against him, seeking the sturdiness of his body. He makes himself stop trembling, breathes out in a gush. He keeps hold of their wrist and pushes the sleeve down, kissing the length of Nanaba’s arm, pressing them to him with his other hand on the small of their back.

“Mike,” Nanaba bites out, burying their face into his chest. He ducks his head to theirs, kissing into the crown of their skull as he so craved

“I missed you, Nana. Fuck, did I miss you.” He _worried_. It felt like missing on fire. An ache so sharp he burned with it. He swings them up into his arms, chases their squeak of surprise until he finds a kiss at its center.

“You’ll be proud,” Nanaba gasps when he drops them together onto his bed. They scratch at his scalp and he lifts himself from their neck to spy their firm face. “You’ll be pleased. When you come to know. You will know.” They promise this with a kiss. “When we’re through. Take care of the Corp, do everything you can for us as we are. Protect us as you can.”

Cowardice makes him lower his head to their neck. He kisses the a collar, wicked magic that weakens them. Anger makes him pin Nanaba’s wrists to the bed, the ropes beneath his refreshed mattress creaking.

“You don’t ever have to ask me to protect you.”

Nanaba grunts and thrusts up against him, their whole body rising save their pinned wrists, a caged little bird beneath him.  He lets them flutter, lets them kiss his lips and bite him as he slowly gathers their wrists together into one of his massive hands. When he takes their waist, then their hip, pushing up their shirt, he lets them moan quiet and fading and come to a pause, all heartbeat, all anticipation.

“May I miss you?”

“I’m here,” they say. “You don’t have to anymore.”

Everyone in the corps misses someone. Some days, Mike thinks that they’re one unanswered longing, that they ride beyond the Walls as an outstretched hand, palm empty. He skims his nose along theirs, their lips meeting fleetingly. “You’ll go again.”

They sigh gustily. Nanaba lacks his maudlin and his patience. “Are all the superiors in this branch dramatic? Is that the qualification for advancement?”

“Yes, and all cadets are full of lip.”

“Full of _dick_ more like it.”

Yes, he supposes, they have been around Levi too much. Mike feels the ruin of their quiet grace, but he will embrace their crass humor if it comes to a permanence. So be it. He laughs because what else can he do. Nanaba cracks a smile.

“Not quite, Nana,” he murmurs, good humor restored, and lowers himself against them. He isn’t hard, not yet, but Nanaba squirms delightfully; the twist of their wrists in his hand, the buck of their hips, their hot mouth –he falls into it gratefully, forgetting to breathe until he does, deeply, nose behind their ear. The familiarity of their scent, what it does to him, pulls a groan from low in his chest. Mixed with the  normal scent of skin and sweat is an apple sweetness that settles his gut from longing.

“Your beard tickles,” Nanaba hiccups, covering the answering affect Mike’s audible pleasure has on them. They lose patience with him, legs locked around his waist, and roll them both over so they sit astride his hips. They shake off his hands and brush their fingers through their hair, tucking it behind their ears. It makes them protrude, a comical effect. Mike bites his lip on a smile and reaches up to ruffle their hair amess. Nanaba swats him on the chest, pouting, but their playfulness stills as they rest a hand across his sternum, palm spread over the beat of his heart.

“I missed you too,” they whisper, eyes lowering for only a moment before they gather themselves and look him dead on. Passion blazes in their eyes, smothering the look of weariness they’d worn into his room. “You better welcome me back, Mike.”

He pulls Nanaba down against him in answer, hands on their hips, their ass, body pressed to body. They kiss hotly, too hurried and with noisy gasps of air. Nanaba doesn’t shake as they hold their weight above him, not yet, too strong for that, but that only gives Mike the luxury of undoing them himself, of bringing them to ruin.

“I want your smell in my bed,” Mike grunts, arching slightly as Nanaba bites at his neck. “Open you up and have you get wet everywhere for me.”

Nanaba shudders, mouth faltering in its quest over his skin. Mike gives them another squeeze, humming and smiling; he turns his face into their neck and kisses deceptively light.

“I know what you missed, my Nana.”

“Then quit talking.” They push at him, too small and playful. The motion shakes with their desperate hiding. They will hide in this bed. “You talk so much!”

He has never heard that before in his life.

Despite the tension and heat, the desire that’s coming from anger and faith, they undress each other slowly. Mostly. The individual articles of clothing come off quickly, but both linger over each reveal of flesh. Mike sucks at Nanaba’s nipples, wide and brown, and Nanaba licks his stomach until each of his muscles tremble beneath their wicked tongue. Hands rub down strong backs and nails bite at solid thighs. Mike will never not marvel at Nanaba, at what they give to him of themselves. He shows them this with his hands and his mouth, kissing and stroking, praying and promising.

Nanaba pulls his hair one too many times, prompting Mike to push their knees to their chest and bend them in half. The spread of their legs releases a new punch of their pungent odor, ripe dripping sex. It’s a sure sign of victory that Nanaba releases his hair in favor of their own, fisting curls with a cry. He alternates sucking on the stiff cock standing before him and plunging his tongue into the pussy gushed open, drooling all along his chin. This precious place of his Nana; he adores it. This is his victory, buried in the apex of their thighs. A pig. He’s gluttonous. Nanaba waters for him, rushes. They pull apart their own knees, rocking back. Mike rubs a wet thumb over their asshole until it quivers and opens for the tip. He buries his tongue in their cunt, licking up and out hard enough that the muscle of his mouth ache and he can’t breathe, dragging his face over their pumped lips and little cock that twitches like it wants to burst and grow more.

Nanaba comes, slick and soaking themselves and him. Mike groans into their muff, heaving for breath, lapping at juice and tense skin until Nanaba kicks him away and curls over with a grunt of satisfaction. Mike laughs and collapses behind them, embracing them.

“Fuck, Mike,” they giggle, pushing a hand between their legs to assess the damage, fingers slipping easily over themselves, into themselves. “Fuck.”

He pushes his cock between their thighs to fuck the wet remains, keeping himself hard while they catch their breath. “You smelled darker down there. Drinking beer these days?”

“Huge tankards.” Nanaba ribs him gently with their elbow and continues to tease his cock. “I’m trying to get you drunk off me.”

“Mission accomplished.” He snaps his hips hard against them, hard enough to feel the way their ass jiggles, the resilient muscle a sharp clench around the root of him. “Now tell me where I should stick this. In this part of you,” he folds his hand over Nanaba’s between their legs and presses their fingers together, easing them slowly but deeply into the forgiving grip of Nanaba’s pussy, “that’s so hungry. Or should I make you feel me here,” and he lets his dick slip up between their cheeks to rub hard but ineffectually against their pintight hole.

Nanaba curses him, twisting in the sheets, words slurring and wanting and useless. He lifts their leg open, pulls them apart again to thrust against the mound of their cunt, fucking over both of their holes, up to rub against their cock.

“Both are always so good,” he rumbles. Nanaba writhes and thrusts back, catching him in their cunt; he pops out, even wetter. They groan like death until he lines back up and sinks up and in, stretching them with every long, thick inch of his cock. It feels instant and torturous though he goes slowly, so slowly he quivers with it. He’ll never rush with Nana. Like this, only half of him fits comfortably, cockhead rubbing into a slant of burn-hot muscle inside his Nana. His silent Nana who’s panting, a hand clawed into his arm holding it locked around their waist.

He kisses their shoulder gently, rubs their stomach. “Good?”

“Oh fuck, good, yeah,” Nanaba hisses with another wild breath. Mike shushes them and kisses the nape of their neck, waiting for Nanaba’s telltale impatience to show itself in a rocking body. Mike fucks them like that, held open. He pulls all the way out and makes them feel it each time he pushes back in, the first give of their lips around him over and over, the expansion inside their body. Nanaba rubs themselves, a tight circle of fingers round and round until Mike brings them to peak again and they’re left grasping at his bedsheets, letting Mike fuck them harder and harder until they’re at the edge of the bed and the only way not to fall is for Mike to sit them on top of his dick. They feel all of him like this, almost too small for him, not deep enough inside; it’s a tight fit; it always is. It lets them take him as much as they want or as little. Some nights, they ease him like this. Tonight, Nanaba rides him shivering, loudly, Mike’s deep grunts beaten from him with pleasure. He comes first this round, filling Nanaba up and over instantly, a messy spoil splashing to soak his pubic hair with each continued thrust.

Still contrite, Mike takes his hands from their cock and doesn’t let them rub off again. He fucks them until he’s soft, until his come has spilled out from them before he prods a weary and horny Nanaba to sit up so he can finger fuck them, sliding a pinky soaked in his come into their ass with swift force and a sharp spank. They grind themselves into his face to let him lick and suck their small cock. Nanaba scratches a furrow of red up his back as they come again, arched over his shoulder.

Across the hall, Erwin makes Levi come silently, pulled tight like a bolt, as he finishes his mostly accurate speculation about Mike’s behavior in bed, set to the tune of his hand on Levi’s body. He has fucked Mike for years, after all.

 

If Mike has Nanaba tonight, he’ll have them. If Nanaba will vanish again, he’ll leave the impression of his body in theirs, the ache of him to carry. He’ll give his Nana all the pleasure they can handle so they return home. Looking at them asleep, a blur of skin and curls and trust, he knows he’s a fool of a man. They’re right. He can’t say no. Not to Erwin or Levi or them. He’ll die not saying no.  He won’t let Nanaba too.

In the morning, the red bliss of the night fades when Mike follows through and removes Nanaba from his squad.


End file.
